As some you may remember, my bus came to me with a fresh brake job. Obviously the wheels were off and on as a result. Today my job was to adjust my speedometer sensor, behind the left front wheel. So I take this as an opportunity to try out my 20 ton jack, my new torque multiplier, and pull the left front wheel to have a look at the brake job.

The nuts are left hand, get that figured out instantly, and man they are tight. i'm using a three foot bar along with my 6.5:1 torque multiplier, and some of these nuts are taking 1,000 ft lbs or more to break loose. they've only been on four months, they aren't corroded on. Get five loose, the sixth one is a bear. I'm putting at least 350 ft lbs into the torque multiplier, that's like 2000 ft lbs at the nut, and what breaks loose is the 3/4" drive of the torque multiplier, sheared right off. so now I'm out $350 for a brand new torque multiplier that undid a lifetime total of five nuts, I have to make an appointment at truck shop, take the bus in, have them undo all the wheel nuts on the bus, inspect all of the studs for stretching, and put on all new nuts at the very least. What a crock.

I'm not aware that any 3/4 inch tools are made to do tire work. The standard of the industry is 1 inch as far as I know. I'm concerned you will end up with loose wheels if you deviate too far from the usual tools used in the industry.

My money says you won't find anything wrong with the wheel studs or the wheel nuts. Trying to get commercial equipment to conform to lesser standards and back yard remedies with inferior tools is gonna get someone hurt sooner or later.

I have heard some go so far as to say they are confident with their 1/2 inch guns doing 1 inch steer studs. Certainly that 1/2 inch gun won't damage any wheel hardware, but I'm gonna give you guys doing that a yellow stripe or something to put on your rear bumper so I don't get too close to you on the highway.

Buses ain't cars. I have been around heavy equipment all my life and if you want the wheels to stay on, the standard of the industry is a 1 inch tire gun and they pull the studs tight and leave them tight for a good reason.

If you gotta play this game, at least do your walk around inspections for missing hardware every 2 hours, you owe the rest of us that much.

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The equipment that broke was rated to 1200 ft lbs. How much heavier duty does it need to be, when the correct torque on a wheel nut is under half that? I was putting over 2,000 ft lbs through it when it broke. It had every right to break at almost twice it's rated throughput. I'm not mad at it, I'm mad at the guy who put the nuts on at what has to be more than a little in excess of the specified torque level. I know that it takes a lot more torque to break something loose than what it was installed at, so I'm not implying that these were done up to 2,000 ft lbs. I also know that an impact wrench is better for breaking stuck fasteners loose than the smooth force applied by a torque multiplier.

I have no idea where you got the idea to talk about the folly of using 1/2 impact wrenchs on bus wheel nuts from my post. The inference that I am using back-yard hack mechanics and inferior tools is actually kind of insulting. My background includes building and maintaining racing cars at a professional level, I understand torque and fastener technology very well indeed. Hammering on a wheel lug with a 1" air gun and pulling them "tight and leave them tight" is about what happened to me, and I'm obviously going to pay the price for having a guy who's been around heavy equipment all his life have at the wheels on my bus.

BTW, I hope you're right and I don't have to replace the studs. But putting new lugs and inner nuts on is cheap and easy, and good to do.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Impacts are the easy way to take those babies off. When we were breaking our nuts loose, we ended up with a ten foot breaker bar on a T handled 1" Snap on wrench. It finally broke (and I was glad that it was only one). It was also nice that we were replacing every stud on the bus too, at that point.

NJT, I don't agree with you on this one. I would rather somebody use a 1/4" cordless impact to put my tires on, and have them torqued properly, then to have them rammed on with a 1" gun. Personally I use a 1/2" IR thundergun. It can put 500 on (roughly I believe), and 550 to 600 reverse. I believe that the key to installing the lugs, is making sure that they were properly torqued. I think that was probably Brian's problem. Somebody saw fit to ram his on lugs with a big gun. Net effect? Probably damaged threads/studs, and costing him tools and time and money.

Do it your way, but I will always torque mine, and I won't let anybody hammer them on with a 1" gun. Industry standard is worth something, however torquing them is even better.

So anyways, NJT, you can send me your yellow stripe sticker . I would rather that my tires be properly torqued, as opposed to rammed on with a 1" gun, and the studs break and lose a tire. It was right around a year ago that a guy I know was killed by a tire that came off of a truck. The studs had broken (1" industry standard gun, no doubt), and the tire broke off, jumped the concrete divider, split the Honda accord in half, killed one brother instantly, seriously injured his sister (severe head trauma, eyesite loss, etc,) and also injured the other brother in the car. All that to say, no 1" guns ramming lugs onto the bus (the only exception is if it is done very carefully and slowly). And everything will be torqued. YMMV

I think you are justified to be a little miffed. Ride it out tho, my friend....it all works out good in the end.

I am lost to understand why a 1/2 inch wrench isn't a good choice to tighten any nut to any torque that is within it's operating spec. There are 1/2 inch wrenches that go up to 900 lbs and I think that is enuf. Most only go to 4-500 and that is sure enuf to spin them down so you can hand tighten them that 1/4 turn to ther correct torque. Lets see, my 270 pounds on a 4 foot bar would add up to 1085 if I leaned on the bar and probably 1400 if I bounced. I think I could get this done without a 1 inch gun.

The 1 inch gun is on my list and i will have one when they next go on sale at HF. I think they are needed to break loose over torqued nuts. That carelessness is inexcusable in a professional and in the auto industry there have been so many multi million dollar suits awarded bu 12 jerks just like you and me that some think we need to stop at all costs to ourselves that all the big chains hand tighten every single nut with a torque wrench. I am certain I have benefited from their current level of care cause I have had more than a few shops strip or break lug nuts let alone stretch some. That is Tort law working for you and me....we don't have the Gummint looking over the shops practice like they have in Europe where they DO NOT have tort law but pay for every cripple and orphan with tax dollars. Big difference in how they do business over there.

Get a new multiplier so you can tighten your own nuts to the called for torque. Complain to the mfr about the wrench and see if they will comp you one and share the brand name if they do.

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You should have seen the Prevost that took a trailer tire through the windshield. There were three people riding in the front and none received anything worse than small glass cuts. A real mystery!

Sorry about your friend. This stuff happens all to often. I think only OSHA can resolve this in our system. You can't legislate something so far down in the minutia as nut torque unless you are trying to relieve a banker of any culpability. That they can do and have done.

John

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"An uneducated vote is a treasonous act more damaging than any treachery of the battlefield.The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”—Pla

How are you going to put new inner nuts on a steer hub? Are you running duals on your steer axle?

If someone came out to work on my race cars with a torque multiplier, that would probably be OK, but I would wonder about it. Hell, I own real torque wrenches for that, just like I own real tools to do tire work.

Never in my life have I seen any tire man come out of a tire shop with a 3/4 inch torque multiplier to do my truck or bus tires. For more than 45 years I have been around the industry and 1 inch tire guns have gotten the job done. Now I have some folks who are new to the truck and bus world saying 42 years of safe tire principals are all wrong. A guy buys a hokey tool and it breaks and everything that has served public safety all of my life is wrong.

Sure you can pull a wheel down with less torque, but if you run alot of rough roads or go up into the cold country where the roads frost heave and you really flex and stress the wheels and wheel hardware, if the wheels are loose they work their way off.

If you have ever done tires you know the gun is heavy. A "tire monkey" as you folks call them has to hold the gun while he tightens the lugs and believe me there is no reason to want to over tighten any lugs because you have to hold the gun that much longer. Chances are this "tire monkey" is a professional who did his job properly. This day and age, with high unemployment there is no reason to keep someone around who doesn't have good work habits or purposely destroys equipment and thats what your accusation amounts too.

John 3, I question your senario of a wheel breaking off a semi from being over tightened. Great story, but stud pilot duals would be likely to break off and would stay togather. If only one came off, it was loose, the outers are just to big to break. Inners, yes they are only 5/8 vrs 1 inch but you lose both of them togather, not one. Hub pilot wheels don't stress hardware... In my 45 years in the industry, I have never had a wheel leave a vehicle for any reason, (thank God), and that is alot of wheels installed with a 1 inch tire gun. Many years ago one of my competitors lost a set of duals with a new set of studs. State Patrol took the wheels and studs for study and came back and said the new studs were defective, the Rockwell Standard was too soft. They went after the whole supply of those and took them off the market.

I have never seen a reliable spec for stud torque dry, so torque of dry studs is guess work at best. We don't do head bolts dry. I question any torque accuracy if the threads are dry and think the only safe way to know is to use the industry standard tool. I think dry studs are meant/designed to be torqued with a 1 inch impact gun. Problem is it takes one to remove dry studs and nuts as well. If you want to properly wrench heavy equipment, step up and buy the proper tools.

Virtually every wheel on the road all over the world is serviced with a 1 inch tire gun. I have not ever heard a complaint until people without 1 inch tire guns started servicing those wheels. All of a sudden the transportation industry as well as the entire tire industry is wrong and we are going to improve upon it with some hand tools from China... OOPS they broke... Stupid tire man!!!

Guys, I don't want any enemy's and I don't want anyone to dislike me. I know I sound harsh but I am speaking from many years of experience and wheels are an extreme safety issue on the highways. I have issues changing things that are not broken and slamming what I feel are alot of professional tire guys I have learned to respect, that make their living everyday doing their best. Gary, my fleet tire man at the local Schuab has been doing truck tires for a living for over 30 years. I am certain Brian would have had exactly the same experience with his tools and a tire that Gary had installed.

My truck, trailer and bus wheels are all installed Ingersol Rand 1 inch Tire Gun tight, I always do a walk around every 2 hours and visually inspect each wheel for missing or loose hardware as well as flat duals. Its the law... If you will do the inspections, your wheels won't have a chance to come off your vehicle, no matter how you install them.

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I am not saying that everybody is wrong. There is industry standard, that usually works, and there is a better approach. Like I said, I will always torque mine (even if I run it on with a 1/4" impact, but again mine is .5"). I think that it is bad practice to ram the lugs on, simply because it puts so much stress on the stud. In our bus, we carry people (not a charter, but again, we aren't just freight). When you carry people, and not just freight, you should do things differently, and better.

So you do whatever (you can still send me your sticker ), but I will torque my wheels to the proper specs, and I won't risk people live by ramming them on with a 1" gun, as hard as I can.

Me and my half inch, and a torque stick will do for us .

BTW, I would have to check the HP report again, but I do think that they said it was broken studs. That is why I will do it right (and torque them properly). I don't want to risk others lives.

Question for you, though. You have are in the trucking industry. Which do you think is better? Ramming them on with a 1" gun, or taking it real slow and easy with a 1/2" gun (or the 1" really slow), and then torquing it. My guess is that it is easier to ram them on, and not have to torque, and that is why most "industry standard" shops do that.

Oh, and using a 1" tire gun does not mean you hammer on it until it stops turning. Usually after the nut stops turning, let the gun hammer 3 or 4 times and that is good. Just to clear that up...clear, right?

The nice thing about hub pilot is the studs/nuts get lubed and are torqued wet (not dry like the stud pilot).

Question for you, though. You have are in the trucking industry. Which do you think is better? Ramming them on with a 1" gun, or taking it real slow and easy with a 1/2" gun (or the 1" really slow), and then torquing it. My guess is that it is easier to ram them on, and not have to torque, and that is why most "industry standard" shops do that.

What do you think?

God bless,

John

I do not know of any tire shop I've used in 30+ years that torques stud pilot lugs/nuts

I had very similar posts to my hub/stud failure from people who are not or must not be very knowledgeable when it comes to the correct procedure for changing car,van,truck bus wheels.

There is only and I mean only one way to be sure the correct pressure placed on the nut to hold the wheel on. Some people do not read the manufacturers recommended torque tables. But if they would it clearly states a minimum and maximum ft Ib amount that can NOT and I mean NOT be applied correctly using a 1/4"to 2" impact.

The only way you can be sure the pressure is within specs is to use a calibrated torque wrench. This can be a 1/2" 3/4" 1" as long as it is used correctly.

Brian you were very lucky to find out when you did that some uninformed person used a 1" air gun for the job the torque wrench should have been used for.